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I think part of the reason our democracy sucks is that a lot of people are uninformed and thus are swayed by media posturing. My view is - if you don't follow politics and world affairs, your knowledge of the candidates is going to be formed from campaign commercials, which are usually nuanced at best. Thus, each ballot should have a three question multiple choice test (decided by some bipartisan consortium, questioning their knowledge of the past four years) which you have to pass at 100% in order for your vote to be counted.

What do you think? Can you think of any negative consequences? Can you come up with some politically neutral questions?

Quote:somebodyelse said:I think part of the reason our democracy sucks is that a lot of people are uninformed and thus are swayed by media posturing. My view is - if you don't follow politics and world affairs, your knowledge of the candidates is going to be formed from campaign commercials, which are usually nuanced at best. Thus, each ballot should have a three question multiple choice test (decided by some bipartisan consortium, questioning their knowledge of the past four years) which you have to pass at 100% in order for your vote to be counted.

What do you think? Can you think of any negative consequences? Can you come up with some politically neutral questions?

First, a test to vote would be unconstitutional.

Having said that, I think that would be a great way to ensure years of Republican control as many who vote Democratic are poor, under-educated, uniformed, and then how about non-English speakers?

That would be a great way to deprive people of their right to vote.

--------------------You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers

Yeah and the constitution is not in crisis , and is very well respected by those in power right now. I'm saying given the atrociously poor attention span of Americans, perhaps a test is *needed* to make politicians accountable. After all, if those who are actually paying attention are the only voters, then don't elections become about "issues" rather than people politics?

I don't think that your stated consequence would be true, but if it was then so be it. I think this way would be truer to the spirit of democracy than letting a vast group of the uninformed be swayed by catchy election programming.

My whole point is that perhaps the right to vote should be *earned* - we already prevent cons from voting, so why not the uninformed? (Incidentally I don't believe the rule that cons cannot vote is just ).

The South used to have tests to vote - that way the mostly poor and illiterate black population couldn't vote.

My conclusions:

No government works. Humans just suck. Democracy just breeds ignorant people, willing to be ruled by the wealthy. Communism..yeah, we saw that fail horribly. Anarchism would never work because people are assholes. Socialism? Naw, no one cares enough to try.

American liberals seem to have a thing about contemptfor anyone who isn't middle class and doesn't readNewsweek.

I fall into none of those pigeonholes. Maybe middle class, but at a stretch.

I *do* have contempt for the 40% polled who believe that WMDs have been found, or the 30% who believe WMDs were used against us, or the X% who believe whatever lie-of-the-week the spin-meisters in DC throw at us (left or right, this isn't an ideological stance). I do think it is wrong that politicians can lie repeatedly and get away with it with a little bit of media management, that they can talk openly of "staging" opportunities for campaign commercials without anybody caring, that they can go back on campaign promises for the first three years of term and then in the fourth do a bunch of feel good stuff because the attention span of the public is about 3 weeks at best, etc etc.

I think also that since American education is in such terrible shape, basing a democracy on the will of the uninformed whose opinions are shaped through stage management and manipulation through commercials is at best phony and at worst dangerous.

That's an entirely different proposition than taking away votes from non-property owners, and your comparison is tenuous.

First of all we were absolutely never intended to be a democracy. The problems we have now all stem from the fact that the constitution is being ignored on a daily basis and people are voting to take things from others. Legal plunder is the problem. If the constitution were being upheld properly I really don't think it would matter all that much who we put into office (Unless they all agreed with each other enough to start passing amendments).

--------------------"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." - Thomas Jefferson

Quote:I think part of the reason our democracy sucks is that a lot of people are uninformed and thus are swayed by media posturing.

There's no doubt about it. The average European knows more about what's going on in American politics than the average American. But why is this the case? My guess is it's because current events isn't a topic in American schools (at least it wasn't where I grew up in California). Maybe if more empahasis was placed on current events, this would change? Does anyone know if current events are emphasised in schools of other countries?

Not in canada...the only thing i remember is making a scrap book on the winter olympics in grade school...had to be from newspaper articles...

Thats why i don't vote. Both choices suck, and are the same shit different pile, and the people who vote only see the campagin adds and vote for the candidate whos name sounds nicer, or whose capaign slogan stands out. If everyone was educated and informed i'd still be only one voice out of a billion, but the way it is now you have cluster groups of stupid people who know jack shit.....how can this system possibly represent me?!

thats a fucked up vote, in canada we have high taxes and low repression.

azmodeous- speak for yourself, I grew up in canada knowing tons abotu american politics.

and if your worried about representation, the liberals are trying to implement a representational system in bc, meaning, whatever percent a party gets of the vote, they get that percent in the bc government. and there are many choices in bc, so i dont know why you're bitching.

unless....i completely misunderstood your statement.

--------------------enjoy the entertaining indentity i have constructed for you while you can.

"Yeah and the constitution is not in crisis , and is very well respected by those in power right now. I'm saying given the atrociously poor attention span of Americans, perhaps a test is *needed* to make politicians accountable. After all, if those who are actually paying attention are the only voters, then don't elections become about "issues" rather than people politics?"

An informed democracy in America would have to realize that theri vote does not matter at all, and that both parties are funded by the same people, and that both parties (as I have mentioned before) are exactly the same when it comes to issues being ignored, vis a vis:

the drug warenergy dependencetrue campaign finance reform(I wont put the fourth one, see if you can guess)

The two political parties we have are like camaros and firebirds; the headlights and tail lights look different but its the same car, and the last thing either of those parties want is more people voting (people who they cannot predict).

If any of these issues are brought up by a person in either party that person is ejected from the party, the party line remains unchanged.

They can fight over social security and medicare but when push comes to shove both parties are protecting the same interests at heart, and neither wants to offer a real alternative.

As has been mentioned, voting tests are illegal for very good reasons. Voting is a right in this country. That is what makes it a democracy. If you pick and choose who can vote you might as well just put one name on the ballot. Again, this is how the Southerners kept the poor blacks from voting back in the day. As far as cons go, they gave up their right to give any input when they commited a felony. Don't you think also, that the people who do vote are the more informed crowd who actually do care. I am not saying they all are, I am just saying they are proportionately more informed than most non-voters.

Quote:shakta said: As far as cons go, they gave up their right to give any input when they commited a felony. .

What about cons for political, non victim crimes? Like, for instance, people busted for using or selling drugs and no other predatory behaviour? Should they be barred as well for voting, and when such people make up a large section of the people that get felonies, should we so sanguine about a large group of people being excluded from the voting bench when they are making a political statement?